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Volume 6 Number 2
Fall 2012
| E-Mail
as an Arena for Authoring a Dialogical Self Among
Gifted Young Adolescents: A Qualitative Study Queensland University of Technology (Brisbane, Australia) |
pp. 1-33 |
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ABSTRACT: This paper describes a
qualitative study that investigated young
adolescents’ self-constructions within the context
of online (email) communication. Drawing from
dialogical perspectives of self as
multiply-situated and complex phenomena, the study
focused on the everyday narratives of individual
young adolescents interpreted as different “I”
voices. With the assumption that computer
mediation offers cultural relevance and
empowerment to young adolescents, techniques of
personal journal writing were used in combination
with email as an alternative to face-to-face
methods. Twelve participants aged 10 to 14 years
were recruited online and by word-of-mouth with an
invitation to write freely about their lives over
a six month period in a participant-led email
journal project. The role of the researcher was to
develop a supportive voice of listener/responder
that was intended to facilitate the emergence of
participants’ own ‘self’ voices within an
interactive space for relatively autonomous
self-expression. Data as email texts were analysed
using a close listening method that synchronised
with the theory by revealing multi-layered
patterns and shifts of voices in order to give a
nuanced understanding of participants’ self and
other evaluations. The paper shows that narrative
methods used online and in concert with dialogical
concepts have potential to heighten
self-reflection and strengthen agency as a means
to access rich and nuanced data from young
adolescent individuals. The study’s findings
contribute to a growing interest in the use of
dialogical concepts to explore the ways people
engage in active meaning-making while embedded in
their specific social and cultural environments.
KEYWORDS: Dialogical Self, narrative methods, authoring, gifted young adolescents, email
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